written & illustrated by Frank H. Taylor
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Forgive the change in background color . . .
the cover looked hideous against the yellow used elsewhere.
Preface
WITHIN a night's ride by rail, either from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Washington, there is a region of lakes and glens, of populous, shady villages, rich farms and wooded hillsides.
The Lakes, a dozen in number, are embraced within several of the counties of Central and Western New York, all, with one exception, belonging to a single group, each having its own peculiar charms of surrounding and approach.
In undertaking the labor of description and illustration of so broad a field, the writer finds it impossible to adopt any fixed plan, preferring to plunge in medias res, meeting the reader upon the shores of the central and perhaps best-known member of the cluster, and guiding him thence with just enough of the leading strings of fact and fancy to enable him to determine his plan of travel, with a wide margin for personal discovery.
This book, in fact, pretends to no greater office than that of guide-board, pointing the pathway to a cool, charming, and accessible summer land.
F. H. T.
There follows an excerpt from Chapter V
V. ITHACA AND CAYUGA LAKE
Ithaca rests at the head of Cayuga Lake, as Watkins does upon Seneca, but is much larger. Business structures have crowded most of the better class of residences up the hillside, where the inmates may enjoy an expansive view of the lake and the sloping, rounded contour of the opposing highlands. Ithaca is the centre of a prosperous and broad agricultural region, giving it a metropolitan air, without robbing it of its shade trees or its parks. More than this, it is an educational centre of world-wide repute. Cornell University stands in the forefront of American colleges, and having the wellspring of its being in the princely bequests of one of its own citizens.
Cornell University occupies one of the most beautiful sites on our route, commanding a large extent of water and valley scenery. This university is one of those founded on the Congressional land grant of 1862. Its endowment was about a million of acres, to which Mr. Ezra Cornell added half a million of dollars. This is the twelfth year of its age, and it has about four hundred and fifty students and fifty-one professors. It is undenominational and admits both sexes. The buildings are placed on a campus of table-land about four hundred feet above the surface of Cayuga Lake, which stretches off to the north, forming a lovely water scene reposing between hills on both sides for fifteen miles.
AND SO IT GOES --- a leisurely tour of the Central NY Lake Country by boat and rail - from a 19th century perspective. Each page has a black & white steel engraving of the scenery and architecture - many more than one.
With maps and original ads 70 pp 7"x11" P $9.95 - to order
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Copyright © 1996 by
Richard Frisbie -- All rights reserved.